Gendered Pathways into Local Office: Evidence from Municipal Councilors in Germany

Women remain underrepresented in political office across all levels of government in most countries. While much existing research focuses on variation across national parliaments, we know considerably less about the causes of gender differences in political representation at the subnational level, largely due to the limited availability of systematic data. This paper addresses this gap by analyzing gendered patterns of political recruitment among individuals who successfully entered municipal councils in Germany. Theoretically, this study draws on both behavioralist and institutionalist perspectives to examine gender differences in political motivation and personal circumstances, as well as the role of networks and party selectors in shaping access to candidacy. Accordingly, this paper analyses how women and men who ultimately gained local office became candidates and which hurdles they encountered along the way. It investigates whether candidacy decisions were internally motivated or externally encouraged; how personal, professional, and party networks influenced nomination processes; how contested the nomination was; how candidates balanced employment, family responsibilities, and voluntary political work; and how prior political or civic engagement shaped their pathways. Empirically, this analysis draws on self-collected survey data from the collaborative project Macht vor Ort (“Power at the Local Level”), comprising a unique dataset of approximately 400 municipal council members in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Fielded in early 2026, the dataset provides novel individual-level information on, among other things, personal and professional networks, the motivation to become a candidate, support and family structures prior to election, recruitment efforts, and the competitiveness of the nomination process, alongside contextual information such as party affiliation and municipal characteristics. This enables a systematic comparison of gender differences in the recruitment process using individual-level data. Methodologically, this paper employs a quantitative approach, using various regression models to identify patterns in political recruitment, with gender as the central explanatory variable. By analyzing the recruitment experiences of those who successfully entered office, this paper sheds light on mechanisms that contribute to persistent gender disparities in municipal representation. Given that local politics is a key arena in which political engagement often begins, where democratic processes are closest to citizens, and which often forms the entry point for higher-level political careers, understanding these gendered recruitment dynamics is crucial for explaining broader patterns of women’s underrepresentation and for identifying levers to foster an increase in women’s descriptive political representation.